Friday, April 16, 2010

VICIOUS! From the video I watched (shown below), it is obvious that UnitedHealthcare-Maxxis sprinter Jake Keough intentionally crashed Rahsaan Bahati (Bahati Foundation) during the Dana Point Grand Prix criterium this past Sunday. Just look at the photo below in which Keough is caught for all the world to see SHAMEFULLY deviating from his line and turning his upper body (to be followed by his bike) roughly 45 DEGREES into his African-American rival.

Some have argued (without merit) that, because the race was overly-aggressive, (and apparently, Keough not able to defend position through speed or skill), the stymied sprinter from UnitedHealthcare was within his rights when he toppled the tall rider who, as a youth, had escaped from the gang-infested L.A. ghetto to become a champion professional cyclist (aka: a PRO).

What happened 15 laps prior to Keough's vicious swerve into Bahati is immaterial when it comes to assigning blame for the incident in question. Bahati was trying to move onto the wheel that Keough was following before the sprint, because he intended to win the race and dedicate it to his Latino teammate Jorge Alvarado, who died the day before when he was hit by a car being driven in an illegal street race. Granted, what Bahati wanted was the spot behind Keough's own teammate's wheel, but is that not the nature of field sprinting? A fierce but clean battle for position, followed by an explosive stampede towards the line!

It would seem that Keough lacked something besides common sense that day - perhaps strength, or bike-handling skills - because he couldn't defend his position and at some point would have had to have ceded it to Bahati. But instead of doing the Pro thing and surrendering the position he could no longer defend, Keough, like a desperate little despot, knowing the war was lost but hell-bent on destroying everything he and his teammates and their supporters worked to build...Keough crashed his rival and marred the conclusion of the race!!! Even if "Bahati was going all unnecessarily aggro to get in the UHC train," (to quote a random forum poster) that still doesn't give Keough the right to knock down Bahati, or any other rider for that matter - because as we see, many other riders - innocent and undeserving of their fate, just like Bahati - were made to painfully suffer because of Keough's irresponsible, vicious, hateful move.

So UN-PRO.

The alternate video (taken from beyond the S/F looking AT the last turn), which is embedded in the VeloNews web-article on the incident, is inconclusive and should not be relied upon for determining the cause of the crash. The ICTV feed highlighted in the article, but unknown to the masses until now, tells a different, more somber story: a vicious thug savagely attacks a respected professional who happens to be an African-American leader in his community, and knocks him to the ground along with nearly a dozen other innocents, in a high-speed bike crash during the Dana Point GP Criterium.

24 comments:

At first glance I was going to say fuck-off to Bahati, but then I took time to read your post...(which was pretty great, by the way) ... and I'll accept the fact that he's gotten flicked painfully here.

At first glance I was going to say fuck-off to Papp, but then I took time to read his post...(which was pretty great, by the way) ... and I'll accept the fact that Bahati's gotten flicked painfully here.

Wow, a little harsh in the rhetoric (at least you don't outright claim it to be a race incident), but that's pretty egregious behavior on the part of the white kid. Out of everyone in the race, you're gonna knock down the only black guy, who's just had his Hispanic teammate killed? Oy vey. Brilliant.

What is really tragic is that Keough also took out one of his own teammates in Eric Barlevav. You can see Bahati and another Bahati racer screaming at Eric after the crash while Eric is limping in pain - as if it were Eric's fault. Guilty by association I suppose. I just hope others on UHC don't suffer further because of this nuttiness [is that a word?].At least one good thing has come out of this though - we are talking about domestic racing!!!

Being that I am the "random forum poster" described above, I would like to say that upon further review of closer-up footage, it does seem that Keough is guilty in this case. However, to clarify one thing, I wasn't intending to say that Bahati's aggressiveness in any part of the race would've justified him being crashed intentionally. Aggressive but controlled riding is the name of the game, as you point out Joe, but crazy riding is just, well crazy--and dangerous!

That's not a "serious Keirin move"Real professionals have a code of conduct that is followed. Attempting to intentionally cause a crash that will result in injury and loss of income or career ending is viewed as unprofessional and childish.

YOU are making a statement regarding conduct unbecoming of a professional??? Are you effing kidding me? You're the the worst saddle sore in the history of the sport! You're a cheater, a supplier, and a snitch. There is no worse seed than you! I can't wait til you're in jail getting exactly what you deserve.

Not that you deserve a response, but didn't Jake defend his spot? Bahatti, according to other racers that saw everything, not just the crash, said he was out of his mind all day and was riding crazy and that he was at fault for the incident.

How does throwing objects into the middle of the bunch rank on your scale of PRO vs UNPRO? Actually don't answer, I could give two shits about what you think, you fucking LOSER!!!!

1. Did you read the article you linked? Fellow racers all say Baharti was at fault.

2. By throwing his glasses, Baharti changed the outcome as much as Jake. Says something about you that you don't comment on that.

3. You, of all people, have NO business commenting on what is good or bad. Please shut up and go away. Forever. Please.

4. Why are you trying to turn this into a racist incident??? No one else has implied that anywhere. That might be even worse your doping. With doping you were just the scum of bike racing. With your racist comments you're the scum of the earth.

el jefe: You wrote, "3. You, of all people, have NO business commenting on what is good or bad. Please shut up and go away. Forever. Please."

You're a pretty stupid moron given that you came here to the author's blog to leave a comment. Only a retarded ass-clown would come into another's person's house and tell them to go away. LOL. You're stupid. Ha-ha.

If Johnny Bold has bad legs or low energy it's probably from winning cross nationals, or his 6th straight new england master's cyclocross series, or maybe it's from traveling to Belgium and placing 3rd at the world championships. Maybe he's more bad ass than you'll ever be, he did post under his own name after all not some anonymous comment or some foolish 1 word username. I would guess he has so much hate for you because you gave the sport he loves yet another black eye. Theres one thing I know for a fact......if Johnny has bad legs he sure as hell won't be plunging needles into his veins to fix the problem.Oh and bj's and pms-ing remarks. Very mature and classy. The least you could do is stay on topic, or has all the dope turned your brain into mush? I think it was mush to begin with actually. Please go away from the cycling world forever, including this blog!

Wow - surprised to see all this anger here. Who is Johnny Bold and why is he personally so angry? Sheesh - if he's that upset he should probably not subject himself to the reading of this blog.

That said, it would appear that Johnny Bold (is that a pseudonym or real name) is a masters cyclocross racer of some merit in his age group. Congratulations. But again, not sure why you're so upset - seriously dude, you're barking up the wrong tree coming here and leaving comment(s) asking me to go away. Just don't read the blog if you have that much of a problem.

I ain't seeing it. Not enough info. Bad angle. 2 seconds of video. JK may have had his front wheel slide through the turn and been in th midst of a remarkable recovery. He may have been overlapped and falling, only to get a last secobnd chance to save it with a dive to the right. I doubt anyone wants to go down/chance going down/cahnce taking a teammate/seriously hurting a teammate at 30+. What does Jay Kay Say?

Pappillon welcomes your comments and encourages your participation. However, in commenting, you agree that you will not:1) Post material that infringes on the rights of any third party, including intellectual property, privacy or publicity rights. 2) Post material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, slanderous, hateful, or embarrassing to any other person or entity as determined by Pappillon in its sole discretion. 3) Impersonate another person.